The present invention relates to a soft chewable multivitamin tablet, more specifically, to an improved soft chewable multivitamin tablet in which vitamin C is separated from calcium pantothenate, and/or minerals such as iron, copper, zinc and mixtures thereof in a core or multilaminate form and a process for preparing the same.
In general, tablets are prepared by compression of a mixture of active ingredients and pharmaceutically acceptable carriers such as diluting agents. However, the hard nature of conventional tablets does not allow children and the old to take them easily. In this connection, several approaches have been made to prepare tablets having softer mouthfeel in an attempt to overcome said problems and to facilitate easy taking for children and the elderly people.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,327,076 discloses a chewable tablet comprising Premix I (pretreated fat composition containing fatty materials, fat-sorbing materials, tabletting binders, antioxidants, flavors and colorants), Premix II (pretreated active ingredient composition containing antacids, oil binders, emulsifiers, flavors and colorants) and Premix III (pretreated direct compression tabletting aids containing tabletting binders and flavors). However, the prior art chewable tablet has revealed shortcomings as followings: the tablet is uncomfortable to take, because of its bad mouthfeel and palatability; and, an intermediate-type tablet having the characters of hard tablet and soft tablet is produced, since individually prepared Premix I, Premix II and Premix III are simply mixed and tabletted.
Moreover, many multivitamin tablets developed so far are proven to be less satisfactory in the senses that: they have worries of the incompatibility owing to the chemical natures of vitamins or minerals in the tablet containing vitamin complexes, multivitamins-minerals or natural products; and, they revealed undesirable aspects of lowering the content and potency of active ingredients over a long-storage time.
Under the circumstances, there are strong reasons for exploring and developing alternative soft chewable multivitamin tablet which can avoid the chemical interactions among the various vitamins to cause incompatibility while maintaining pleasant mouthfeel and palatable taste.
The present inventors have made an effort to solve the said problems by partitioning active ingredients whose potencies are affected by the incompatibility, and formulated an improved soft chewable multivitamin tablet in which one component of vitamin C is separated from the other components of calcium pantothenate and/or minerals to maintain a more stabilized pharmaceutical activity over a long-storage time.
A primary object of the present invention is, therefore, to provide a soft chewable multivitamin tablet whose active ingredient of vitamin C is separated from calcium pantothenate, and/or minerals such as iron, copper, zinc and mixtures thereof in a core or multilaminate form.
The other object of the invention is to provide a process for preparing the soft chewable multivitamin tablet which comprises separated active ingredients.